SFU Political Science graduate awarded prestigious Canada Postdoctoral Research Award

SFU Political Science PhD graduate, Dr. Timothy van den Brink, has been awarded the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award for his research, Governing Tongues: Mapping Diverse Understandings and Politicizations of Languages in Canadian Political and Community Institutions. This prestigious national award recognizes van den Brink's research achievements and will support his postdoctoral work at the Université de Moncton. 

Van den Brink started his PhD at SFU in the fall of 2021. “It was a strange start. We still had COVID-19 protocols in effect, and I was commuting from Delta at that time,” he says. Once on campus, he was happy to be involved with the department and fellow students. “We worked to rebuild the graduate student caucus and ensure that people were available as representatives on committees,” he says. “We also met outside class and encouraged people to reach out if they encountered obstacles in their academic journey.”

Keen on building a career in academia, van den Brink focused on developing skills and experience in alignment with the current academic job market while completing his doctoral research. “SFU’s Political Science department offers great opportunities for PhD candidates. Professors often need research assistants. There are opportunities to teach, funding to attend and present at research conferences, and supportive faculty members who are generous with their time and expertise.”

Van den Brink finished his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Rémi Léger. “Professor Léger is a great mentor. He had a lot of interesting connections and research ideas for us to explore.”  

He also acknowledges SFU’s Charity Slobod, Professional Development and Student Experience Manager in Graduate Studies, Dr. Kate Slaney, Associate Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Dr. Clare McGovern, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, for supporting his academic journey. 

Van den Brink’s PhD thesis at SFU looked at the governance of official languages at the federal level to understand patterns and differences in policy communication across various governments. Building on this research, his post-doctoral work will expand to look at provincial politics. “This is important,” he says, “because a lot of provinces in Canada have unique ways of understanding their languages.” He plans to implement methods from computational linguistics for broader analysis and future collaborations with community representative organizations. “This could provide a lot of implications for understanding the flow of ideas and ideologies in Canadian politics. Recently published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, van den Brink's article, Instrumentalization of National Identity in Canada’s Official Languages: Chrétien, Harper and Trudeau, is further development of his research.”

Van den Brink is presently working alongside Professor Michelle Landry, Canada Research Chair in Canadian Francophone Minorities and Power, at the Université de Moncton. “She is at the forefront of the research with these communities and looking at provincial language politics. I am excited to learn from her,” he says, as he looks forward to the post-doctoral collaboration. 

Van den Brink, who received a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship in 2022, says the experience helped him strengthen his grant-writing skills and offers to extend his support to any SFU student who is currently applying for research grants. “I am always happy to read over grant applications. I was a part of FASS Graduate Student Scholarship Application Mentorship program throughout my PhD. I encourage anyone who is applying in the future to reach out either to that program or if they want, they can also email me directly.”